Next stop

The world has suddenly gotten very complicated.

When we left for Cuba, the COVID 19 outbreak was pretty much contained in Central China’s Hubei province, in the city of Wuhan. Travel bans were not being talked of to any extent. 4 weeks on from our return and the universe is upside down.

I know a few kiwi dudes who’ve fished Cuba. Good mate Nik had hosted live-aboard trips to the Isle of Youth (Isla de la Juventud). Dougal (71 permit notched up) has been several times. Ian went a couple years ago with Nik. When old mate Simon moved to Montana a couple of years ago it was to chase dreams and a woman, maybe not in that order or maybe they are the same thing.

Si’s ended up working for Yellow Dog, as their specialist for NZ and Cook Islands, but had the opportunity to take his regular guests and friends on a trip to Cayo Cruz and reached out. It didn’t take too much convincing to get a bite and a confirmation. Jas was also in - we fish together a lot and generally have each other covered for stuff like flies, lines, other bits n pieces that we may need or have forgotten. Slowly our itinerary came together. The party comprised 11 guys, 2 expat kiwis, 7 US citizens, then us. The trip outbound was arduous. Auckland – Houston – Totonto – Cayo Coco, bus ride to Cayo Cruz. Roughly 36 hours. We arrived 18 hours before the rest of our contingent, giving us time to settle in to what was quite a nice hotel, take a swim in the pool, and get the lay of the land. We’d taken an AirBNB in Toronto to try and grab a few hours sleep but were both a bit wired. The shower was good! The -12 degrees c outside at 3am, was not good!

That evening at dinner we ran into the very few other guests staying, Vicky and Barry, a worldly English couple, 3 Finns and then we saw a very familiar face. Matt Harris, the famous fly fishing photag and a mate were at the bar. Before long, we had a robust discussion going that involved numerous rums, a few packets of the local Hollywood cigarettes and over the hours we discovered mutual friends, places we all knew and talked through permit tactics. They’d had a tough week with very little permit action, and given their experience in permit chasing it sounded pretty dire. But the one thing I know about fish is that one day they are down and the next up; and no matter what, they have to feed at some point. Matt and his bud left the next morning, and our fishing week was on.

Jase and I paired for the week with our guide Coba, who works for the Avalon outfit. They are an efficient and well drilled operation and our hotel was only 200m down the road from the marina. Our skiff, a 16’ Dolphin was armed with a 70hp yammie 4 stroke and made for a super-efficient fishing platform. The marina was in an arm of a channel that drained large flats and the tidal movement was impressive to say the least, I estimated 4-5 knots of current when in full flow.

We found ourselves in a rotation-based program, each morning fishing an assigned area then in the afternoon the guides had freedom to take us to any location they saw fit to based on their knowledge. Mangrove cays with channels, large coral flats, enclosed flats – we saw it all on our travels throughout the week.

I had the first permit shot, at a pair that swam out of the mangroves and over my alphlexo crab without paying it any attention. I was pretty hyped but felt I’d made a reasonable cast so was disappointed that the fish paid not a jot of attention to the fly. Our first Cuban bonefish each came soon after. The flats were varied and wonderful, from ankle deep to maybe thigh deep and the bones were quite unlike the big shy South Pacific versions we’re used to. Cabo wanted that fly to land in the fish’s face… and they ate. On one occasion, we stalked a large bone cruising with dorsal and tail out of the water. Coba told me to hit the fish on the head. I put the fly a metre ahead and he got quite annoyed. The cast that should have spooked the bejesus out of the fish instead elicited a massive strike and the bone carved rooster tails of water through the mangroves. 

We went hard on our drags. A 16lb leader while not unbreakable, does take a fair hammering to part so stopping these mangrove fish before they hit cover was the name of the game.

On arrival back we were greeted with the news that Simon and Bob had each caught a permit; both fish had been riding on rays and had accepted well-presented alphlexos. That night we celebrated, but to a lesser extent than the evening before…

As the week rolled by, so did our permit chances. We found cruising fish and with a combination of wind, fast moving prey and Coba’s refusal to pin the boat it was horribly difficult to fish effectively with a tight line. He began to express frustration and if he was frustrated it was nothing compared to what I was feeling at times. But I wasn’t there for any other reason that relaxation so I let it wash over me. Jase and I continued to tally up the bones at a great rate and had some amazing catches. 

My personal favourite was when I left all of my gear bar my rod at the boat and walked along a brush covered bank separating an estuarine flat from the open sea. As I moved along slowly, a pair of bones approached and I laid out the cast perfectly. The fish raced each other when I twitched the fly, and (for once) the larger fish engulfed the fly. I struck and the fish ripped out into the backing, the first to do so for the trip. Its second run was equally hard, out again ripped the backing loops and the sound of GSP singing in the guides rang out. I worked the fish hard and then it ran again… straight to a snag offshore where it holed up. The only thing that saved that fish for me was that it was exhausted. It had tied itself to the snag with a series of half hitches, and as it struggled, I could see the snag pull down then spring back. Reeling as I went, I waded out and the fish attempted to swim between my legs.. at that stage I realised my only course of action would be to lift the snag to shore which I did, with fish trailing. I called to Coba to bring the camera and he arrived soon after. The fish swam away gamely after being digitally entrapped.

We found that the afternoon tides were better for finding permit as the week wore on. The wind never relented however, so that challenge remained with us. Those glorious afternoons… flats so long that it would take up to 2 hours to drift down one. On our final afternoon (by this time Simon had caught 3 permit) we finally found our ray riding permit. Jase was on the rod and made a good cast but the fish always seemed to be facing away from the fly.

On one occasion we came upon 2 lemon sharks mating on a flat, stirring up coral and sand and swimming with them was a good-sized jack – Jas dropped his fly into the melee and the jack slashed at it and missed – but our presence disturbed the sharks who moved off. These sharks were ever present but were not aggressive and at one point where we’d rounded up a school of bones and were taking turns at picking them off, I jumped from the boat to cast at a bunch. Stupidly I’d taken my boots of so was stuck where I was. After they moved out of range, so had the boat and I saw Coba hitting the bottom with his pole. Later when onboard he told me that 2 decent sharks were bearing on me but they were most likely simply curious.

The evenings were balmy and the more or less constant breeze kept the mozzies at bay. Nocturnal activities include the 24-hour bar, playing pool or bowling, or fishing for the pet tarpon that lived under the pier where the boats were moored. The bar and pool joints seemed contrived; a play at mimicking some cliched western culture and it felt out of place, but certainly reflected the ambition to became a thriving tourist mecca. A shame really, but the same time understandable as Cuba tries to raise its people’s standard of living.

Still, the fishery is world class but for us as the week progressed, the permit remained in the category of struggle street. We saw only a few ray riders and it became apparent that those were the catchable fish, whilst the cruisers were just that, cruising.

Our trip home saw us with a free day in San Fran, and it was an honour to be able to visit the Golden Gate Angling and casting Club, where friendly locals were happy to hand over rods for us to use. It was truly in the spirit of angling brotherhood, and a morning that I'll never forget. The historic clubhouse was a museum of angling treasures and the casting ponds were a spectacle. 

Long may the angling adventures continue. Next stop...